masonfisk Agnes Varda's travelogue from the early 60's follows a singer's movements in a 2 hour stretch (ala High Noon, playing out in real time) as she awaits the results of a medical exam. What we find is the empty life the singer leads as she deals w/sycophantic songwriters, unnecessary spending sprees & visits to cafes for drinks that may fill the void which is her life. Very compelling as the journey says as much about the singer as it does Paris as well as being an important New Wave film directed by a female director who is still working today.

talisencrw When I think of interesting filmmakers, the world over, whose movies are always a pleasure to watch, I thank God every day for Agnès Varda. I had her '4 Films by' Criterion boxed set, seemingly forever, left unwatched, and I don't really know why. Perhaps I felt her films wouldn't excite me enough, I don't know. I certainly enjoy foreign, and French, filmmaking enough. Maybe it was because she was female, I don't know. I hope not, but I'm simply being honest. Sometimes I'm apprehensive about starting to investigate the works of a director who's different from me: Female, non-English, non-Caucasian. I think it's difficult for me to start, because I'm afraid that I won't be able to fully emphasize with their sphere of reference, and thus won't be able to either appreciate or enjoy the filmic experience as much as I should. Once I start, and watch that first film I see of theirs, I'm fine. But until that point, it's truly a challenge.My university library had her two recent critically-acclaimed films, 'The Gleaners and I' and its sequel, on one DVD, and one of my favourite critics, Roger Ebert, had made a 'Great Movie' article about the original. So I gave that series a viewing, each film a separate night, and I fell in love with her as a person, and found that her films were not going to be a challenge for me at all. Thus I then turned to my previously-imposing, aforementioned boxed set, and went through it chronologically.This, the second film of the set, was extraordinary, basically a real-time cinematic exercise of a lady who is waiting for the results of a biopsy, and thus wondering if her quality of life is going to be seriously challenged or not. In it, as I've found in all of her films so far, there's an extraordinary visual flair, a great and natural storytelling facility present, and you can really tell that Varda both loves people and is glad to be alive, and it shows in everything she does. If you are in a similar boat, and are reluctant to investigate Varda's works, please do yourself a favour and don't hesitate any longer. Appreciate this extraordinary woman and her work while she is still alive. You will never be the same.

lasttimeisaw A 90-minutes real-time experiment tracks Cléo's life from 5pm to 6:30pm (although the title indicates a 120-minutes span), directed by the reverend female Left Bank pioneer Agnès Varda, actually it is my first entrée into her oeuvre. Cléo (short for Cleopatra, Marchand) is an uprising singer, who is going to get a test report from her doctor of whether or not she has cancer, the film records the exact time she spends before receiving the result. Beginning from an ominous Tarot card augury (the cards is the only part shot in color), Cléo descends into upset and despair, solaced by her assistant Angèle (Davray) and a fur hat bought in a millinery, they return home and Cléo has a brief moment with her preoccupied lover (de Vilallonga), then arrives the pianist Bob (the composer Legrand himself) and the lyricist (Korber), they rehearse a poignant rendition of SANS TOI (a majestic one-take close-up of Marchand's emotive exuberance). Afterwards, Cléo meets her friend Dorothée (Blanck), who poses as a nude model in a sculpture studio, together they watch a silent comedy short (starring Godard, Karina, Brialy, Constantine and Frey, which is a welcome highlight against the seemingly unpremeditatedly arranged text). Wandering in a park, Cléo meets a young soldier Antoine (Bourseiller), unexpectedly they establish a sincere conversation and he accompanies her to the hospital, where Cléo acquires the results while Antoine is going to the Algerian War the next day. Throughout the film, Varda conspicuously edits into the montages of passers-by on the street, in the cafeteria or on the bus, tellingly attests its "realness" in her modus operandi, which delineates the winsome picturesqueness of Paris at then, projects a strong sense of objectivity albeit its dramatized content, a young woman's inner state when she is facing the most stressing and gnawing 90 minutes of her life, waiting for a call from death or a near-miss joke.With three people billed as the cinematographers, the film actually adheres to a consistent effort of modulating the tonality of a laid-back documenting stance, although it is not a groundbreaking sleight of hand as the long-take stunt of real-time shooting in Aleksandr Sokurov's Russian ARK (2002, 7/10), frankly it is a bad comparison since Varda's work is made ages ago. Most importantly CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 still remains its distinctive élan of being a French New Wave prose and positively enchanting with its loosely organized language to keep the story intact.

evening1 Here is the story of a beautiful French singer in the unenviable position of needing to wait two hours until learning the results of a dire medical test.I was reminded of the classic short story "The Lady or the Tiger" as I spent the time with her, wondering whether she would live or have to face her demise.This film is refreshingly improvisational as we wend our way through Paris as Cleo (Corinne Marchand) visits a tarot-card reader, a café, her own apartment in which she rehearses a song with a pianist played by "Parapluies de Cherbourg" composer Michel Legrand, an art studio where her friend poses nude, and, finally, a park in which she converses with a soldier on leave from Algeria (Antoine Bourseiller).Marchand is gorgeous here, wearing everything well, from her sexy dress or housecoat to her wig or triangular fur hat. The camera adores her. Rich and gifted, she is also impoverished because her lover (a suave Jose Luis de Vilallonga) speaks lovingly yet will not truly give of himself. And, of course, she is potentially facing a very premature death.Cleo demonstrates bravery as she passes the time, occasionally navel-gazing, growing maudlin, and even boring us a little. (Who among us wouldn't do the same in a similar situation?) Cleo's repartee with Antoine as the film draws to its close is endearing and compelling. One even wishes that the drama could have started with the pair, but that would have been a different film.Truman Capote is credited here with writing the dialog, and I wonder whether he did so in the original French. If so, I'm impressed.In all, this was a powerful experience.